Dream a Little Dream of Me
by xxlucidreamingxx
Summary: AU Stiles story ; Stiles/Original character with mention of rest of the characters.


Madness does not always howl. Sometimes , it is the quiet voice in the end of the day saying "Hey, is there room in your head for one more?"

The Agony, then. It begins. Today there was a gale blowing up from the North. The morning came like a yellow fog along a roll of developing film. From the town, across the foaming channel you can see from the window, the river god has sent us his offering: mud, in a solid tawny line across the bay. The wind has scooped out the very bowels of the potamus across the way, like a mammoth evacuation, and bowled it across at the town. The fishermen complain that they cannot see the fish any more to spear them. Well, the rufus sea scorpion and the octopus are safe from their carbide and tridents. Deep-water life utterly shut off, momentously obscure behind the membrane of mud. The winter has lapsed back into its original secrecy.

The slither of rain along the roof. It bubbles in along the chinks of the windows. It boils among the rock pools. Today, at dawn (for we could not sleep because of the thunder), the girl put on the gramophone in the gloom, and the competition of Bach strings, resinous and cordial as only gut and wood can be, climbed out along the murky panes. While the sea pushed up its shafts and coils under the house, Stiles and Scott sat there on the bed, dark as any dungeon, and mourned the start of school and loss of summer. Lost, all lost; the fruiting of green figs, apricots. Lost the grapes, black, yellow, and dusky. Even the ones like pale nipples, delicately freckled and melodious, are forgotten in this morning, where their one reality is the wind, musty with the smell of the fall, stirring the bay into a muddy broth. This is the winter of discontent.

The silence was cut short, by the buzzing of Scott's phone, it was his mom, calling him for lunch. The next moment, room was empty. Only Stiles left with his dream of the night before.

The air was full of the fine dust of the desert tombs—the Arabic idiom of death—and the panic world is quite done for, quite used up and lost. The cypresses are made of coal: their forms stipple the landscape, like heavy black brush strokes on a water color whose energy has been rinsed from. Yes. Winter, winter everywhere in these nude, enervate symbols. It's cold, so cold it chills the bones. Felt like you could hear the whispers, even the trees were singing their songs on the wind. Everything he touched, was hollow ; water was murky with all shades of black. If he didn't know any better he would start believing there in fact is a color darker than black. Everything is so, .. so dead. There is no other way to put it. There is a correspondence between the present, this numbness, inertia, and that past reality of a death, whose meaning is symbolic, mythical, but real also in its symptom. As if, lying here, in this mimic death at morning, we were recreating a bit from the past: a crumb of the death we have escaped. Yes, even though the wild ducks fall in a tangle of wings among the marshes of near foggy swamp, and all the elements are out of gear, out of control; even though the sea flogs the tough black button of rock on which this, house, wass built.

He could not have begun this act in the summer, for example, because in the summer they sit along under the wall on our haunches, and listen to the figs bursting. The sun dries up what is fluid of agony in us, laps us in dread of heat, so that all we know is nothing, sunblack, nothing. The membrane gathers over our eyes as they close, and only the black bubbles of torpor cross and recross the mind, as if born from lava. Then he saw her. The milk of sentiment curdles in the veins; hair frozen along the scalp; cold, wet, bright golden locks falling surrounding her pale face. She is sitting, with her hands on her knees, looking at him, with wary look in her dead eyes. She seemed so torn and exhausted. She reminded him of someone, someone from the long forgotten past. The red shoes. He remembers the red shoes, those red shoes with white laces ; it is all so blurry when it comes to her. He feels that she knows him, and probably he should know her too, but can't pick it up from where. He exhaled; and said by hitting himself out stretched palm over right cheek : „ You stupid idiot, it is just a dream. You watched too many horror movies with Scott past summer. Chill, don't try to analyze, it is just a dream.

Well, one cannot help thinking this in such a dawn, when the wind is filling the room with the evocative smells of the dust, and the nascent fust of the tombs: the stale explosions of ancient life breathed coldly on up like leper's breath. You are so pale and done for in the morning. Pale, the face on the pillow, while the rotten smell of the crusades blows damply in on you. He tried to push that thought away and get on his feet to start the school day.

School passed, like in haze. He hasn't remembered much of it, as if he wasn't attending the classes, well if you think of it, he didn't. Mostly he slept through, only to be awake by Scott slapping him on the back, or pinching him with a pencil in his ribs. That usually shook him up. He hated that. He brushed off his friends, saying he is tired, he needs to rest. His friends are slowly getting worried, this is not usual Stiles, who makes jokes and give sracastic remarks to Scott's ideas. Nope, something is happening, but they are trying to wash it away with the thought, he had a busy summer. Well, he did, depending how you look at the meaning of the word „busy".

He came back home and first thing, without putting his shoes off, just slamming his bag far away on the desk chair, jumped on his bed. Sigh of relief was out of his lungs. Suddenly he remembered an old photo, he and his father held in the family box, along with mom's old photos ; he jumped up to search for it. He found the old dusty box which was surrounded with red ribbon ; he opened it and searched for that one photo. „This is where I saw the girl get up from bed and brave the cold for a moment." For a moment the summer almost burst into bloom again: Ah! but here we have only the dregs of yellow smeared across at the icy contact of bone. It is today at breakfast, while the yachts hound across the water, tear-stained and anxious, toward port, the death-watch ticks. Do not ask him how. Do not ask him why, at this time, it is part of us here, in the four damp walls of a damp house, under an enormous wind, under the sabers of rain. From this nervous music rise those others, like his friend Scott, the werewolf kind. Isaac, walking along the iced suburban streets, his scarf drawn across his face, Derek, clambering his suburban girls like a powder monkey; just yesterday he was all broken and withdrawn, look at him now. They all are so vivid and things seem going good for them, for once. Isaac, for example, six-foot, frost-bound, jackknifed, jaunticed when in his wolf form; among the foam and uproar, extending his lax hand in greeting. Here we are, sitting in the hallowed fug of the lounge, wrapped in rugs, among the declining plants and statues.

"I am afraid to shake hands with him, for fear that the skin will slip the bony structure of the hand and come away. It would take so little to produce the skeleton from this debile bundle of meat. Besides he doesn't shake hands, what am i thinking, even? What the hell, this sudden fright of him? Maybe because last time i saw him, he stood up high in front of Derek, defending Scott, he seemed more of a man than ever. Standing up to Derek, man, that was big for him."

When he is at home the he is like dead again. Not with the complete mystery and passivity of the dead organism, but dead in the sense of the little death. With him he carries this little shadow of dreams which lits up in the signs of a new chaos.

„Our world is a world of strict boundaries, outside which we dare not wander, not even in our imagination; whose seasons come and go without any sense of change. It is medieval in its blindness, this existence. Only in winter, when the snow falls, there is a strange dark light thrown on the walls of our rooms. The shadows in corners melt, flow, dissolve, and dwindle to black. This is the season we all hate so much. This carol of snow, when the red robin sits importantly on the rose bushes which line the deserted gardens, and the letter rack is crammed with tradesman's Xmas cards. Avery merry Yuletide to you and yours! (Sweep on, ye fat and greasy citizens.)" He cought himself being grumpy, not usual Stiles behavior. Not at all. He swept it under the rug, like it is nothing. You can't be all merry go lucky all the time right? Sometimes, just sometimes things turn to worse. Just to make us realize, the life is real, and it's there and not everything depends on us and our wishes and needs. It has its own mission. He slapped himself and half yawning words came out „ Stiles shut up! Whats up with you and soul searching subjects? You are never like this, not even when it's about Lydia. Just shut up." He felt annoyed ; so the next best thing was taking his usual meds and go have some rest. He felt tired.

The gardens have many mirrors, shining up on the drawn blinds, in a chaotic, withering flare of candles. In the little cubicle something lies in bed, curled up like a fetus, and rings for the breakfast. The unearthly light of the snow sprawls on the green canvas blind. It is still snowing. It will doubtless continue snowing forever.

Winter morning. An elegy of a bright morning, halfpenny stamps on the night table, old pearl necklases scattered around the bed, golden hair sneaking beneath a floral designed pillow. Up above,the kettle snores on the hob, while somebody is making rushing, hasty movement on the floor. A woman, you can hear screaching noice of women heels. In the musical armchair, old lady smoke and watched girl's vague movements in the gloom. It seemed somewhat pleasant to lie like this, not daring to touch the cold parts of the bed with her toes. The mirror is arranged so that, by lifting herself on one elbow, she can take a good look at her own pale face, perfect skinned,and large blue orbs, so deep you could drown in them ; and decide whether the night's sleep has refreshed her majesty, or whether the mothers wishes were gaining on her. Nobody speaks, for this is a solemn moment. She is checking up on her appearance. Her face is a sort of diary on which every triviality of the daily life is written. She is convinced of this. The gloom is swelling with cigarette smoke. The older woman in the chair was starting to speak, but it was not audiable, no matter how muh you would try, you would not be able to hear it. The gas fire is playing its mute jazz upstairs. The snow is fairing. The elegiac morning is opening on the frozen rivers, ponds, eyeballs, wells, fingers, teeth. The postman fights his way through drifts of snow to bring a letter. Somebody is letting out the dogs for their yellow morning piddle in the snow. Someone will be made to suffer among the trampled bunting, the gin, the cigar Smoke, and the petrified greeting cards on the mantelpiece. Winter morning, with the bacon thawing slowly, as the girls face on the pillow congeals back into sleeping fat. „It is a profound moment, set aside for thinking over yesterday's sins and preparing today's." The girl after her grandma's many try outs, takes the covers off and stands up ; she pauses massively over the picture of her mother. But says nothing. When she is dressed, she tidies up and gives a final glance round. The wireless is dusted. Her red dressing gown hangs at the door. Her tiny shoes lie along the rack in a sentimental position. Everything is neat and orderly.

"Last night she didn't come again." she said, getting her gown slowly on.

"Bad luck." she continued for herself, when she heard no answer.

"What to do, dear girl? What to do?" grandma assisted.

She lifts the flap of her coat and lets hand lie firmly along the rim, fingers hidden. She bends her right leg, and places her toe outside her left foot. She has caught a cold, she thinks. And all because of that strumpet of her sister. The winter night falling downstairs among a million busted pillows, and her sister sitting on a tombstone, frozen stiff, drawn back like a trigger , staring at every sound on the frosty roads. Whenever possible her sister likes to put a big tinge of pity into her conversation because it gives her beautiful black eyes a chance to look their best: soft, molten, wobbling in tears, betrayed. Originally this must have been one of her seduction motives, this expressive sentimentality; but her repertoire of expressions is so vast and changes so continually, that one finds a few castoff leftovers among her ordinary mannerisms. This soft invocative pity is one of them, left over from erotic exploits long since forgotten, except for the lines of her face, of course. The girl draws back the blind and let the soft translucent light into the room. Snow like a great chain from pole to pole. The gutters are clotted with filth. The buses scatter.

She has vanished in a sweeping draft through the stone pillars into the main road. Her scarf dangles over her shoulders. The streets are sharp with frost, the shops with decorations. "I thought we could count on you at least," a man tells a girl, who as of now is picking her pace. By now she is running ; hastly going through the crowd on the streets, like she is running for life. On the way something shiny fell into the snow. Looks like some simbol, sigil, whatever. Its made in silver.

Buzzing of a cellphone startles Stiles awake. He was sleeping again. And drooling all over his bed.

He has already managed to crawl out of his tepid bed and lift the window sash. The sight of the rain disgusts him. By instinct he hops back and draws the covers up to his chin, trying to hurl himself back into dream with skinny ferocity. No good. Then he remembers the dream he was having and broods pleasantly upon it. „A girl on a riverbank. Could it be i was dreaming her again? The dreams are so vivid. Why am i dreaming a girl, i don't even know, two times now in two days? This is crazy. It can't be that i don't know her, maybe i just don't remember?"

Very little in Stiles's dreams remains unravished. He tells about them to Scott; they discuss them together, examine textbooks to see what caused them, and generally psychologize. Stiles loves puzzles, he loves to get his mind working, about all kinds of stuff, just give him something ; the more complicated it is, the better. He wanted to ring Scott, but then again, he promised him months ago, he wont be dreaming of Lydia again, he wont be talking about Lydia, as well as Scott about Allison. In this case it is not Lydia, who lives in the Martin's house, at the end of the street he knows so well, like a back of his pocket. He sayshimself "in this case," in order to pretend that he does not always dream about Lydia. But this is untrue. He seldom dreams of anyone so often or so mostly, as he does of this beautiful blonde girl with the sparrow's knowingness and the cockney twist of the tongue. Therefore the mornings are pleasantly spent in analyzing his unhappy passion and entering the findings in that computer of his. If the dream was wet he gives himself full marks (sublimated); if dry, arid, and intellectual then he gets worried (repressed). And right now he is slowly getting worried. There is a grave alarm in the air for the healthiness of his "life sexual".

It is an endless game of chess with his psyche. Stiles's effective working life is spent lying on his back, throwing something in the air, or lying on his stomack and researching internet on various possible terms and idioms. His spirit divides itself into two essences, pictured by the words Question and Answer; and he swears to be quite honest with himself, though he does not quite know what he means by this. Honesty and clear thinking are the general idea, however, followed by largeness, scope, and a fine bold spiritual design.

But that girl, on a morning like this? He is painfully dressed, cracking a new packet of candles and filling the sconces. The kettle is boiling. Hmmm Lydia? The dirty little brute with the bitten fingernails. She represents this fatal world which you can see if you stand at the window; world that is fully crumbling on yours and you are powerless to do anything about it. The long concrete road, its pure white nap now gouged and muddied by the rubber lips of the buses, the carts, the feet of the ants. The blonde is this morning, advancing stage by stage, grimly, painfully, like a paralytic; the crisp morning sounds; the eggs frying; the loaded trays moving about; the geysers running in little spurts and gallops, and the steam-leaking into the landings; Actually she is nothing of the sort. He thinks before, he falls asleep again.

He is holding that silver, shiny piece of jewelry he found in muddle of snow and dirty rain water. It is in a form of a short name. Tina. It must be the girls name, he thought to himself. He is fastly back into that room, where the girl with golden hair slept.

He calls, "Tina." No answer or movement. The wall is a solid mass of photographs: dance steps torn from trade journals which moves slowly in the wind—the whole wall, I mean, as if it were about to collapse on him. Stiles begins walking around, examining the pictures pretending he is interested in them. The woman in ballet gown, then that the same woman, on icy rink, then her again, teaching her children riding a bicycle. He recognizes the girl on a bicycle though. It's the blonde girl, whose necklace he found ; he is confused.

He takes a few turns around the room, in such precise don's paces that he almost trips in the snowy bits of the puddles he made with his shoes.

"Tina" he says, "come out." „Im not gonna hurt yu, just come out please."

The door of the vast closet, open all of a sudden, scareing him to death. He sees the girl, sitting in the bottom of it, amongst many colorful gowns. Her blonde curls shining, reflecting the light of the window. "Get up, and don't be such a lazy fellow. What is all this? What is happening? Who are you?" He is hoping that she will imagine the words came from him. Tina sighs, sitting there, still.

„In all this, she gestures all around the room, I do not exist. Custom merely has demanded my presence. I existed, once. Now i want to be back. Please, help me." She gets up, walks to him ; he is still mesmerized and nevertheless confused.

Harsh thumps are heard in hallway. You could see a panick in her eyes. She took him by his hand, firmly between her palms and with most soulful voice she pleaded : „ Please, just help me out."

Her beautiful blue eyes, turned glassy with tears. His heart broke in milion pieces. He could feel her pain, her fright and her solitude. She seemed so lost.

The next moment he found himself in his room, standing still, one hand on the doorhandle, the other flipping something in his palm. He never noticed it until now. He held the silver piece with girl's name and something looking like some sort of broche. Although it didnt have a hook behind it,strange he thought to himself. It looked weird also, rather unusual. He locks the door loudly, insultingly. You can see that he will not be able to keep away after all. However, tea, sugar, and a drop of stale milk, might do him good. He reaches for the door again, he might take that tea after all. He bursts open the door and stands still, staring in full on the yellow eyes. His resolution to insult, to injure, to ravage, dissolves inside him. His very guts are liquefied by rage and contrition. He is so humble now, so plaintive, so full of expression, he wished to say something, but it was all futile, he just sighed. It is astounding, this change.

„What can i do for you Isaac?" his voice dripping with sarcasm.

„Go away." Boisterously he yells,

"Get to fucking hell out of here and lemme be, will you?"

„Scott was right." Isaac bitterly replied.

„Right about what exactly? You his errand boy now? Ha?" he saw the golden flare again in Isaac's eyes, he knew he is getting enraged.

„I shouldn't have come. You are fine on your own."

„Yeah you shouldn't have, and please, while you are at it, forget you know where i live, ok? This isn't some wolf pack commitee place, so you guys can jump in whenever you like, yeah? Good."

Isaac haven't said a word. Stiles was babbling by now.

„Are you alright? You talk alot, true, but you seem quite outta place. You sure you are ok?"

„Me? He lazily showed at himself. „Me? I'm good, nothing to worry about, just need some rest. You go and howl to the moon safely, ok? Bye."

That was weird, Isaac thought to himself. This guy is a talker, especially when he is nervous, but now he seemed different, exhausted, almost sick looking, with black around his eyes. He left.

Stiles shruged and got back to his tea and milk. He found some cookies in the cupboard too. Oh joy!

He was indeed exhausted. He did not know what he was thinking, doing. He needed a distraction. He left one problem world to tap into another. World of dreams. „Great Stiles, leaving one problem just to enter another. Great." he mumbled in his chest. He remembered those photos on the wall, he managed they are all of girl's mother. It reminded him of hers. How much he missed her, how much in daily life they are forgeting about her and it hurts. Knowledge of forgetting hurts more than memories themselves. Everything seems so distant, all of a sudden. He misses their talks, their mutual understanding ; they never needed many words to describe how they feel one for another. It was read in those subtle, touches on his cheek, her gentle look in his eyes, or his slow but steady grip on her shoulder, when she is sad. They complemented each other, she wasn't the best mother on the world, but she was his and he felt her love radiating through everything she does. She made everything seem so easy ; life seemed easy. Until she was taken away from him. Somebody ripped a large chunk of his heart and smashed it to the ground. He saw it withering away. Next thing, you hear are the sirens of a medical ambulance. Lights all around, people rushed to the streets.

In the end world is laid out before the fire like a chessboard on which we plan the most exciting moves. It is only a game. After all.


End file.
